THE OTHER DREAMERS, PART 1
by mabb5
Summary: An intact space ship is found with bodies in stasis.  Captain Jean-Luc Picard is called upon to investigate the ship from Kataan.


_**A.N.: **_Revised March, 2013 - corrected typos and factual errors only. No alteration to the story.

_An intact ancient space ship with beings in stasis is found inside of a destroyed Borg ship, and Picard is called upon to investigate. But the thrill of an archaeological hunt takes on a different meaning for him once he learns the origin of the ship: Kataan…_

_This novella was originally published in the fanzine INVOLUTION 12, in 1998. For this publishing, I've revised, edited and added quite a few additional scenes to it. Since ORION PRESS had removed TNG stories from its website, I'm posting the story here. I'm a sucker for 'what-if?' storylines. And though I know the story is a bit implausible, I just couldn't resist writing it. _

_This story is in its own stand alone A/U and is not part of the ATTACHED MEANT and its sequel De-Tached; or BEST LAID PLANS and its sequel, THE SKY'S THE LIMIT universe._

_All the usual ST disclaimers apply. STAR TREK belongs to Paramount. But it is fandom's playground._

_As always, any comments would be appreciated._

**=/\= ='/\'= =/\=**

**THE OTHER DREAMERS**: **(A Sequel of sorts to STAR TREK FIRST CONTACT)**

"_I dream in my dream all the dreams of the other dreamers._

_And I become the other dreamers…"_

_-WALT WHITMAN, "The Sleepers"_

**=/\= ='/\'= =/\=**

"Water. Twelve degrees. Celsius."

Feeling a great thirst, he reached for the glass in the replicator. His hand shook as he held it to his lips. And he drank deeply of the water. Then he ordered some more. With uncharacteristic haste, he finished off that glass as well. He then returned the empty glass to its proper disposal place.

He wiped his brow with the edge of his sleeve belonging to a plain grey terrycloth robe. He had awakened very thirsty again, drenched in sweat. He permitted himself the forbearance of a weary grumble.

And then he thought of Deanna Troi. He considered the possibility that his ship's counselor would have sensed his disturbed sleep. And though Deanna Troi probably would not force her presence upon him at this late hour, come the morning she would expect him to provide all of the minute details of his dreams-_or were they nightmares?-_whether or not he really felt inclined to do so.

He cursed out loud.

"_Merde!"_

He had outlasted the Borg, survived becoming Locutus and had just destroyed the Borg Queen. Now, the only thing that he had to do in order to continue his streak of luck was to outmaneuver his very dedicated, very determined Betazed counselor. He judged that if the Borg Queen had been as intractable in her duties as Deanna Troi was when it came to protecting and curing her patients, then the Federation would have been assimilated a long time ago.

At times, his ship's counselor displayed a tenaciousness equal to that of her mother.

His head was clearing now, his senses focusing. He became more aware of his surroundings. He recognized that he was no longer in his quarters on board the _Enterprise D. Or the Enterprise E for that matter._ He had spent far too short a time, barely a year, on board the E for her captain's quarters to instinctually feel like home.

Breathing deeply of air faintly scented with the tang of elements that were always found in the Martian recycled biosphere air, he looked out his overhead dome to gaze upon the stars. Earth rise would be in a few hours. Clearly visible to the naked eye was the gargantuan glistening space station that was known as Utopia Planetia. His wounded ship was there for the next few months, being healed.

The _Enterprise E_ had been drydocked at Utopia Planetia where Starfleet would remove all of the Borg leftovers before the actual repairs to his ship would be done. Starfleet had informed the captain of the _Enterprise_ that this would take a great deal of time-months in fact. So most of the ship's crew had been temporarily reassigned, or had been granted their long overdue leaves of absences.

As for Jean-Luc Picard, he had been thoroughly debriefed, and then placed on leave on Mars thanks to Deanna Troi's recommendations. She knew her captain too well. He would want to oversee the restoration of his ship even though what he really needed was a relaxing vacation. Staying at the recreational facilities on Mars was an acceptable compromise-though Picard would have preferred it if a certain Betazoid counselor had asked for his opinion before this arrangement had been made.

Still, considering what he had been through the past few days, he supposed that he should consider himself fortunate that he was not still being interrogated by the Federation Bureau of Temporal Policies. He found some consolation in the fact that the police would have to read, re-read, analyze and dissect every single report that every single person on board his ship had been required to write. Everyone on board had been on Earth, albeit briefly, after his 'abandon ship' order had been given. Those one-thousand-and-eighteen reports would keep the temporal police busy for quite a while.

Captain Picard had also made it perfectly clear to the commander who was in charge of investigating the _Enterprise_ incidents that if there were any further questions, especially pertaining to the time line, that all of these questions were to be referred to Commander Data. And only to Mr. Data.

The silence of his quarters was disturbed by a knock on the door. He was about to call out 'Enter!' when he remembered that these doors were the old fashioned kind-they had to be manually opened. Doing so, expecting to see a lady from Betazed, he was shocked to see a lady from a far more aggressive place standing there-Phillipa Louvois.

"Hello, Jean-Luc. May I come in?"

Blocking the doorway, he didn't move. Instead he stared at her as if he thought that she might possibly be an element of a waking nightmare. This was a definite possibility, especially since she was dressed in a shimmering pink Ardanian 'cloud' dress. Phillipa's taste in off-duty clothing had apparently changed. She had never worn anything so blatantly sexy around him when they had been lovers.

"May I come in? Or…" She noted his open robe, observed his hirsute chest, and eyed his muscled thighs. She tried sticking her neck over his barricading arm to inspect his quarters. "…do you have company?"

"I…am…" He abruptly shut up and stepped aside to let her into his quarters, as he tugged the rope belt to his short robe more tightly closed about his waist.

She glanced about, just to make sure that he was alone. Then she really inspected his quarters, eyeing the large windows and spacious rooms. This was a posh apartment indeed, especially since it was located within a Starfleet facility whose constant overcrowded, miniscule standard quarters generated a legendary number of complaints from senior officer and junior officer spouses to Starfleet HQ.

"My, my, my. Grand Poobah quarters… You're moving up in the pecking order of the universe, Jean-Luc." Ignoring his displeased look at her words, she sat down on his Pacifica blue velvet sofa without being asked. She waved her hand about. "I suppose it's one of the perks for saving Earth. Sooner or later, the Admiralty actually has to start rewarding you for what you did…"

"Or, you could court martial me, instead." His retort contained more than a dollop of sarcasm. He closed his suite door and stood before her, impatiently waiting.

"I thought that we had reached an understanding about the _Stargazer_ court martial when were on Starbase 173! Data isn't a toaster-remember?"

"But then you went after my first officer-"

"Well, Riker did crash your ship into a planet!"

"Commander Riker saved millions of lives!"

"Details… Details…" She grinned up at him. "Commander Riker never actually went to trial, now did he? Why do you think that was?"

"My report explaining the situation."

She snorted at his hubris. "Jean-Luc, if you and Riker had not become well-publicized, adulated heroes who had saved us all from the Nexus, it would have been a different matter entirely. Besides, Will has friends of friends in the J.A.G. Friends with lots of power. If he wasn't court martialled over the _Pegasus_ incident, his crashing of your starship would only be considered a minor problem."

"Commander…"

"I'm off duty, Jean-Luc." She touched the side of her throat. "I'm not wearing any pips at the moment." She smoothed her semi-transparent skirt about her thighs. "So, would you please stop glaring at me, sit down, and just indulge in a little polite conversation?"

"Hah!"

But he grudgingly did sit down, on a small side chair directly facing her.

"What do you want, Phillipa?"

He knew her too well to think that an uncontrollable urge for sex had brought her to his quarters, unannounced, at 0130 hours in the morning, Federation Standard Time. Besides, even in such personal matters, Phillipa always had to negotiate the little details first. Negotiation had always been her favorite form of foreplay.

Furthermore, he hadn't even known that she was in Sector One. The last that he'd heard about her, she'd still been stationed in the interstellar hinterlands.

She debated teasing him some more, but she noted a certain weariness of manner about him, as if he had not been getting enough restful sleep as of late. Considering what he'd just gone through, she supposed that this might be true.

She leaned forward, well aware that her décolletage was amply displayed. "I need a favor, Jean-Luc."

"A _favor?"_

"Actually, there are several particulars involved in my request."

"Naturally." He crossed his arms and waited.

For a nanosecond, she debated her next move. But certain things never change. She went with the tried and true. The flirtatious Phillipa vanished. She reverted into the brilliant, forthright, forceful, objective lady that he had known in the past.

"Admiral Hayes," she announced.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Remember him?"

"Of course."

"Remember his direct orders to you about patrolling the Neutral Zone?"

Jean-Luc studied the lady before he answered her question. Obviously, this was not a formal inquiry. Her attire and the lateness of the hour was indicative of such. Yet, clearly she was up to something, trying to convey some sort of unofficial 'official' message to him.

"I am well aware of the fact that I violated a direct order from a superior officer. I stated as such in my report to Starfleet Command. I am willing to face the consequences of my actions."

"Thereby absolving all of your senior line officers in your report, of course."

"Starfleet officers are not trained to blindly follow…"

"Stow it, Jean-Luc."

He bristled. "Phillipa."

She merely smiled. "As I was about to say, Admiral Hayes has an _elephantine _memory. Never mind that you saved the Federation." She waited a second before adding, "_Again._ He was miffed."

"Miffed? Surely Admiral Hayes is not such a petty…"

"Hayes is a wise and understanding vice admiral-officially. _Unofficially_," she grinned, "when he wants, he can be an s.o.b. of the first order."

"Meaning?"

"It might be wise for you to get out of Dodge City, pardner."

"Phillipa…" He thought for a moment. "Dodge City?"

"I just spent a most interesting afternoon with your ship's counselor in a holosuite."

Jean-Luc tapped his forefingers together, waiting for an explanation.

"Ambassador Troi asked me to check up on her daughter. And that was a favor that I could not refuse to grant."

Jean-Luc almost smiled as he nodded in understanding. "One can rarely refuse Lwaxana Troi anything. And I am aware of Deanna Troi's unusual choices in holosuite programs. There have been incidents."

Phillipa moaned. "19th century American West. My bones ache, my muscles shriek in protest. I haven't ridden a horse in years. Not since we rode…"

"I remember, Phillipa." This time he did crack a smile, as he remembered a passionate shore leave with Phillipa that they'd shared years ago.

"Anyway, if you stick around here, sooner or later, Admiral Hayes' ruffled feathers will get the better of him, and you just might find yourself summarily promoted, Jean-Luc. Thereby losing your _Enterprise_."

"What?"

"Can you think of a better way to get even with you without drawing censure upon himself? For who dares to criticize the promotion of a bonafide hero.?"

"Surely you are overstating-"

"Admiral Hayes sent a personal request to the J.A.G., asking us to triple check your background and to investigate any possible prior incidents that would prevent you from receiving a well-deserved, well-publicized promotion to the admiralty."

"_Merde."_

Even though he considered the possibility that Phillipa might be exaggerating the Admiral's attitude, he did suspect that her warning would be well worth heeding.

"And so?"

"My favor."

He nodded.

"It will get you far away from Admiral Hayes," she promised.

"Out of sight, out of mind?"

"You got it."

"And the favor is?"

"Jean-Luc, how well do you know Captain Pournelle?"

"Not that well. I've met her at a few admiralty social functions."

"Well, she's an old classmate of mine."

He tried to recall what he knew about Anna Patrise Pournelle. "She was commander of DS 5."

"She still is. She managed to evacuate her personnel to several class K and M moons around Ladira II before the Borg attacked her space station. You know, her casualty loss was actually quite low. You lost more people on your ship than she did."

He did not care for Phillipa's observation, but he refrained from retaliating.

"I am not disagreeing, Phillipa. What is this all about?"

"Well, as you can imagine, Anna has her hands full trying to restore her station to a minimal operating mode. She just can't take the time right now to solve a mystery-an _archaeological_ mystery."

"An archaeological mystery?" Though he did not admit it aloud, Phillipa's words did intrigue him. Standing, he went to the replicator, ordered two teas of the jasmine blend that Phillipa always had preferred, and returned to the sofa, this time sitting next to the lady.

Her smile broadened as she sniffed her mug, pleased that Jean-Luc had remembered a little detail from their past. "Yes, one of the Borg ships was destroyed near the space station. Large portions of the Borg ship was left intact. Upon examination of the wreckage, they found a completely undamaged non-Borg sublight space ship in storage, complete with a group of beings in stasis tubes inside."

"A sublight ship?"

"Yes."

"The beings-they were unassimilated?"

"Apparently. Either the Borg didn't know how to bring the bodies back to life, or else the Borg had better things to do before they got around to reviving the passengers of the sublight ship. And only the Borg knows how long they were carting that ship around with them."

Picard considered her statement. "You are not by chance friends with Ralph Offenhouse, are you?"

"Who?"

Jean-Luc could see that Phillipa really didn't recognize the name. "Nine years ago, the _Enterprise D_ rescued some 20th century humans who had been cryogenically frozen and found on an abandoned ship. Offenhouse was the most difficult member of the group."

"And?"

"He had the kind of personality that would blend in well with the J.A.G."

"Should I be personally insulted, Jean-Luc?"

This time, he did smile outright. "No, Phillipa. In fact, if you'd ever met the man, you would probably like him. And you most certainly would have remembered him. Offenhouse has a somewhat forceful personality."

"Now, that's a double-edged compliment worthy of a barrister. Whether you will admit it or not, I was an influence in your life."

"I have never said otherwise." He put down his mug. "Why me? Why do you really want me to go halfway across the galaxy to DS 5? I have to superintend the restoration of my ship. Surely, I could proffer my apologies to Admiral Hayes. And if necessary, I will refuse any promotion."

"One. You might not be able to refuse. Knowing Hayes, he'll have plotted a way to force you to accept."

"That is possible." For Picard knew Hayes too.

"Two. Will Riker will supervise the restoration of the _Enterprise_ with care, just as if he were already sitting in the big chair. And if Admiral Hayes gets his way, that will become a reality."

"Still…"

"Jean-Luc, you are the _only_ man for the job."

"I don't understand."

"Captain Pournelle searched through the Federation files and then called me when your name popped up. She is quite determined to get you. According to her, you would be the perfect person to investigate the mystery ship."

"Why?"

"Its origin was identified. You are the only one who has even had contact with a ship from its world before."

He waited. When Phillipa didn't explain, he made an exasperated sound before ordering, "Phillipa, where was the damned ship from?"

"Kataan."

**=/\= ='/\'= =/\=**

No one paid attention to him on board the UFP transport ship _Ivanova._ This ship was busy carrying vital supplies to DS 5.

The ship was but one of thousands en route to star bases and colonies throughout the Federation, trying to help restore normalcy to places that had been attacked by the Borg. Sector One had been the Borg's target. Still, they had done a considerable amount of damage on their flight to Earth.

Though Captain Lorien of the _Ivanova_ knew that she had a famous officer on board her ship, she was nevertheless a civilian, and not overly impressed by gleaming pips and legendary exploits. She had a schedule to keep, cargo to deliver, and really important things to do. She wasn't going to bother with Starfleet's Captain Jean-Luc Picard if he wasn't going to demand it.

Picard preferred it that way. He needed time to be alone with his chaotic thoughts. And his dreams. Sometimes, those dreams were more than troubling. Ever since the Borg attack, they had also been unsettling. And though he did not accurately remember them when he was awake, lately, whenever he dreamed, his reveries always returned to Kataan.

He reviewed the events of the past few days. After Phillipa had finished her tea and accepted the fact that Jean-Luc was not going to offer her anything more exciting than the tea, she had left his quarters. Captain Jean-Luc Picard then sent Captain Pournelle a subspace message of acceptance. Later that day, Picard informed Starfleet Command of his intentions. They did not object. His senior officers were the next to be told, though he offered no reasons and kept his explanations brief.

Deanna Troi was the only senior officer who wasn't totally surprised by his sudden change of plans.

Picard mused that Riker has seemed almost eager to see his captain leave, as if he were relieved about getting Picard out of his thinning hair.

Privately, Picard had to admit that he was almost glad to be going. Ever since his dreams of Kataan had returned, he had not felt at ease. It was as if his subconscious knew that something was going to happen. He could not believe that it was only a mere coincidence that he'd been dreaming of his time on Kataan as this ship had shown up. He wondered if it was possible that his tentative connection with the collective mind of the Borg had triggered something deep within him-something that he had not wanted to share with anyone, most especially his ship's counselor.

He rested his head against the palms of his hands and thought again of Beverly. On KesPrytt, there had been a brief moment of clarity, of remembrance of the thoughts of Eline that he'd shared with his friend. Even if Beverly had not become completely aware of all of the details, she had at least learned the depth of his grief over the loss of a family that he had never really had. And in the hours and days, and trying months after that 'Attached' incident, he had grown in some ways, closer to Beverly. At least close enough to even achieve an easy relationship with Beverly where he could comfortably call Beverly by her given name in front of other officers on the bridge, and not even think anything of it.

But they had not crossed the Rubicon together as lovers. Some internal caution had been restraining his total commitment to Beverly. And now, that same instinct was causing him to confront the ghosts from his past. Maybe after he had a chance to see an actual Kataanian ship, and perhaps even speak to some of its refugees, he could then shake free from the spellbinding grip that the memories of his personal Shangri-La had over his present life.

Because of the dire needs of the station, the _Ivanova_ had been given permission to travel at Warp 8. They would be arriving at DS 5 in a matter of days, instead of the weeks that such a journey usually would have taken at Warp 5.

As was his custom, he kept to himself during the passage; reading, practicing his flute and leaving his cabin to share polite conversation in the mess hall during meals. The only time he actually spoke with the ship's captain was when she informed him of the imminent arrival at DS 5. She permitted him to come to her bridge.

Even from a distance, he could see the damage to the space station. And yet, there were active signs of life. Ships were in orbit, on some levels lights twinkled, and service station pods could be seen swarming about the massive, jerry-built old station.

Controlling a feeling of impatience, he calmly waited as Captain Lorien went through the proper protocols before docking at one of the few functioning air locks to the station. Informed that Captain Pournelle was waiting for him by the airlock, he briefly proffered his thanks to Lorien and her crew, and then focused all of his attention on the matter at hand as he walked through the connecting chamber in to the air lock.

A too-friendly man wearing a denim jumpsuit, a white cowboy hat and a bolo tie with a sterling silver bear claw and turquoise slide, grabbed Picard's hand and shook it with great enthusiasm. "Hello there, Cap'n Pick-hard. Remember me?"

Unfortunately, Picard did. Pulling his hand free he curtly responded, "Mr. Clemonds, isn't it?" Picard politely acknowledged the blond woman standing next to the man. "Mrs. Raymond, isn't it?"

Sonny Clemonds bear hugged the lady. "Clair's my wife now. Birds of a feather flockin' together, ya know?"

Clair laughed, a strained response that sounded as if she had heard this comment from her husband too many time before. "Sonny just wanted to be around someone who could really understand all of his jokes." She reached over and kissed Picard's cheek, sensing his unspoken concern. "I decided that I needed that kind of familiarity, too. Thank you for rescuing us, Captain Picard."

Picard responded with a tight little smile. "Then you are becoming acclimated to this century?"

"Sort of," she replied. "I got to know my Raymond great-grandkids, many times removed, of course. But I also learned that you can't rebuild the past, Captain. You can only build the future."

Picard understood. "So you married Sonny."

Sonny interjected, "And I can now boast of being married to the prettiest little filly in two centuries." He squeezed Clair's waist, beaming with obvious affection for the lady.

Picard acknowledge the officer who seemed decidedly amused by the proceedings. "Captain Pournelle, it is good to see you again."

"Likewise, Captain Picard."

"But why are they here?" he asked of his fellow captain.

"We're here to help!" Sonny proudly proclaimed.

**=/\= ='/\'= =/\=**

"You know the real reason why Jean-Luc went to DS 5, don't you, Deanna?" A very determined Beverly Crusher was interrogating her friend as they walked along the One Gee, three kilometer garden path at the Starfleet exercise facility in Burroughs City on Mars. "I don't believe for one second that Starfleet Command ordered Jean-Luc there. He wanted to go to DS 5 so Starfleet obliged."

"Beverly…" Deanna puffed, trying to keep up with her friend's fast pace. Deanna had to take more than two steps for every one of Beverly's long-legged strides. By the time that she'd decided to answer Beverly's questions, she was almost panting aloud. Spying a rock bench by a fern bordered waterfall flowing into a pretty lotus covered pond, Deanna plopped down onto it and waited for Beverly to notice that she was no longer lagging behind.

Not bothering to conceal her frustration, Beverly continued her interrogation even as she sat down next to her friend. "Well, are you going to tell me?"

Deanna still heaved, trying to catch her breath.

"Deanna, did I forget to mention that your mother left a message…"

Deanna stretched, and then looked about the crystal aluminum biosphere dome that covered the Burroughs recreational areas before she responded to Beverly's attempt at intimidation.

"My Mother _always_ leaves messages with every senior and junior officer whose names she finds on the ship's rosters-even those people who have never even met her or heard of her, or me-in order to attempt to find out what I am doing.

Beverly tried another line of attack. "I have some guaranteed genuine Swiss chocolate in my room…"

Deanna yawned.

"Have I ever fixed for you my family's recipe for chocolate Nanaimo bars?"

Deanna straightened out her cute purple sweat socks.

"The bars have a crunchy chocolate crumb and almond crust, an oozing cream cheese and shaved chocolate middle, and a pure bittersweet chocolate fudge icing…"

Taking a deep breath, Deanna interrupted her friend. She countered with, "Why is it that Terrans have to turn a part of whatever planet that they colonize into a little bit of Earth? I've never quite understood the driving need for Terrans to turn an alien colony into the very place that they have left…"

"Deanna," Beverly warned, rather vexed by her friend. "Give!"

Deanna smiled as she judged the depth of her friend's annoyed reaction. Then she primly remarked, "I do not gossip, Beverly Crusher. Or care to speculate about Captain Picard's motives."

"Since when?" Beverly disagreed.

"Are you asking me in your capacity as the captain's personal physician?"

"If that is what it takes-then yes!"

"Well, since you put it that way…"

"Deanna…"

Deanna decided to be kind. "The official reason as to why Captain Jean-Luc Picard has gone to DS 5 is because of the discovery of a sublight space ship held captive by the Borg. There were Kataanian bodies in stasis on board."

"I don't care about the official reas…" Beverly suddenly stopped speaking and gaped at her friend. "Did you say-_Kataanian?"_ She drew a ragged breath. "Kataan as in his _beloved wife Eline's_ Kataan?"

"You didn't know about…" Deanna suddenly squeaked. Now it was her turn to be surprised. "Captain Picard's beloved-_what_?"

_**"Wife."**_

Beverly shook her head. She didn't want to openly admit that Kataan was a detail that Jean-Luc had neglected to mention to her when he'd briefly paged her about going to DS 5. Ignoring Deanna for a moment, she reached up and straightened out a slipping clip from her hair. Beverly's fingers trembled.

Deanna knew her friend too well. "Perhaps Captain Picard did not want you to worry."

"All he told me was that he was going off to solve an archaeological mystery. He never even bothered to mention the bodies in stasis or where they were from."

Deanna nodded, absorbing some of what Beverly was feeling, even as she tried to sort out her own personal confusion over her captain's actions. Normally, Deanna did not interfere in the peculiar mating steps that two of her best friends were dancing, but there were times when she wished she could arrange to have the pair of them stranded alone in a shuttlecraft on some harmless, isolated planet until some sort of decision was reached-one way or another.

"Well, I've been thinking…"

Beverly studied her friend, pinpointing an element in Deanna's tone of voice and figuring out what it usually meant. Her friend was plotting something. And it wasn't a spur of the moment plotting either.

She nodded her capitulation. "And?"

"If they are able to revive the bodies in stasis, then they are probably going to need some help… Some expert help."

Slowly a grin began to cross over Beverly's lips. "And who better to help beings who have been in stasis for hundreds of years than those who already have experience in such matters-such as a well-regarded Betazed counselor?"

"And her trusty doctor companion who has successfully revived three people…," Deanna echoed.

They shared a moment of laughter. But then Beverly thought of something else. "Oh-if Jean-Luc had wanted us to help, he surely would have asked…"

Deanna interrupted her. "Beverly, when the captain left Mars, he wasn't really thinking about anything else except wondering who might be in stasis on that Kataanian ship. And how soon he could get there to find out."

"You surely don't mean that Jean-Luc thinks that…"

"Kataan was one of the seminal turning points in Jean-Luc Picard's life, even if it only lasted twenty-five minutes in our real time. And there are obviously a few things that Captain Picard neglected to mention to me about the incident." The last was said more to herself than to Beverly.

"You mean…"

"I think that when Captain Picard flew off for DS 5, he wasn't thinking-he was praying."

**=/\= ='/\'= =/\=**

On one of the Ladiran K class moons that some nameless wit had christened 'Ming, the Merciless', Jean-Luc Picard slowly wandered about the storage area housing the sublight ship from Kataan. He studied the style of the ship, realizing that it was indeed similar to the probe that he had encountered. However, this ship was considerably larger than the probe.

"Where are the bodies?"

Standing behind him, Captain Pournelle answered, "They're still inside. My CMO was afraid to disturb them. We haven't fixed enough of the diagnostic and medical equipment in our hospital for Dr. Kooshie to try to revive them."

For a moment, he closed his eyes. Then he looked at the station commander before he asked of this short, dynamic woman. "How many bodies have survived?"

"There appears to be forty-two chambers with bodies. There were other areas that could have contained stasis tubes, but they appear to have been emptied."

He turned around to face the captain and looked down at her. "Any identification of the survivors?"

"Well, since the universal translator doesn't have any dictionary for comparison of the Kataanian language, I thought that I'd better get the one person in Starfleet who might be able to read it."

"Of course. I never programmed…" He glanced over at the grey and white ship, suddenly anxious to be alone with her. "I will board her now."

"Maybe you'd better wait until I can spare some of my techies to help you."

"Captain Pournelle, I would prefer not to wait."

"Cap-tain," she stated, doing a passable imitation of his vocal inflection, suspecting that this would annoy him, "they are not going any where. You wait."

"I am the fleet captain, Captain Pournelle. I don't wish to pull rank, but I do outrank you."

"Cap-tain, I am the station commander, so I outrank you."

"We are not on the station at the moment. Protocol designates the senior captain to be…"

She laughed out loud. Instead of quivering in her duty boots like any properly intimidated subordinate officer, she batted her big, starry-blue eyes up at him as she laughed. "You are not at all like your image, Captain Picard. When you don't get your way, you do revert into a stubborn ass."

"I beg your pardon!"

"_Guinan_ warned me about you."

With that, she pivoted and would have stalked away if he hadn't placed a hand on her shoulder.

"You know Guinan?"

"She likes to drop in and borrow a cup of rye whiskey now and then."

Picard relaxed. Then he thought of something. "Please don't tell me that she's discussed…"

Captain Pournelle guessed what he was about to ask. "Captain Picard, the only time Guinan ever mentions your name has been when she's prefaced it with an invective or two." She thought of something else, too. "Guinan used to call Jordan…" Suddenly, she was wiping tears away from her eyes.

He noticed. "What's wrong?"

"My husband, Jordan-he died at Wolf 359."

Even though Picard had endured encounters like this before, the automatic surge of guilt that he felt every time he heard those horrific numbers never lessened.

"I am sorry. I did not know." He stepped back as if to leave.

This time, she stopped him. "Thank you."

"What?"

"Guinan never had to remind me about who was really responsible for my husband's death. It was never you, Captain Jean-Luc Picard."

"Not everyone agrees…"

She continued speaking as if he had not objected. "I have a daughter serving on board the _USS Agamemnon_, another girl who's in her sophomore year at the Academy, and a son playing his flute on Clarion. The knowledge that you gained from Wolf 359 saved their lives. You saved all of us. If you have not been Locutus, we would not be standing here having this conversation."

Picard realized that what she was saying made some sort of sense. Others had tried to say similar things to him before; most recently his ship's counselor. However, retrospection was not why he was here. His gaze returned to the mystery ship.

"What must I do in order for you to permit me access to the interior of the Kataanian ship?"

"Well, for starters, help me wade through some of the bureaucratic quagmire that this latest Borg attack has generated." She fussed with a few hair pins that were in danger of falling out of her lopsided bun before she continued. "Hell, we don't even know for sure if the Kataanians put themselves into the cryogenic state from the beginning. The Borg or some other race could have done it…"

"And your Dr. Kooshie couldn't determine…"

"He has too many other living patients to worry about at the moment." She gave up trying to straighten out of her hair. "When I asked Starfleet for outside help to bring the bodies out of stasis, well, you saw who they sent me. What we really need are exodoctors, archaeopathologists and archaeocryogenecists with the knowledge of old and various cryogenic practices before we even think about trying to revive the Kataanians."

"And Starfleet had no one else available."

"Cleaning up after the Borg has everyone too busy to bother with something as interesting but as non-essential as the Kataanians right now."

"To them, it's not of vital importance…" He added to himself, "…as it is to me." Picard stated aloud, "I think I know of some experts who will come if I ask."

**=/\= ='/\'= =/\=**

Brimming with excitement, Beverly burst into the rooms that she shared with Deanna on Mars. "Deanna, I just talked with Geordi," she called out toward the left bedroom. "He must be friends with every starship engineer in Starfleet. Anyway, Geordi's got a friend who's got a friend who's got a friend who can get us on a ship going to DS 5."

"That will not be necessary, Doctor." Data stepped out of the shadows.

Surprised by the unexpected sight of Commander Data standing in her tiny living room, especially since he was wearing a Martian red civilian jump suit, it took her a moment to comprehend exactly what he had stated.

"Data, it is good to see you. Did you mean it?" She sat down on the mustard colored sofa and grabbed Data's hand, tugging him down so that he too, could sit on the well-worn cushions. "Now, are you trying to tell me that you have a way to get us to DS 5?"

From one of the tiny bedrooms, Deanna called out to join in with their conversation. "Providential timing. I just got a sub-space message from Captain Picard. He wants us to come to DS 5."

Releasing a mental breath that Beverly had not even been aware that she'd been holding, she slowly relaxed. _Jean-Luc did need her with him._ He had just forgotten it for a little while.

Deanna came out of the bedroom wearing a swirling amethyst dress, similar in style to the blue gown that she used to wear on board the 1701-D.

Data made note of the dress, how pretty she appeared to his artistic programming, and then stated the reasons as to why he had come. "Doctor, Counselor-if you have no objections, I would like to accompany you to DS 5."

Deanna studied Data for a moment, closed her eyes and then analyzed the waves of emotion that were flowing out of Data. "Data, you are annoyed. Greatly annoyed."

"If my feelings are upsetting you, Counselor, I will turn them off."

Deanna sat down on the other side of Data and faced him. "Your feelings aren't disturbing me at all. But they are clearly bothering you. What's wrong?"

_"The temporal investigators."_

Beverly made an odd sound which she quickly stifled.

Deanna smiled in understanding. "Data, it is a human reaction to feel irritated by them. What you are feeling is perfectly normal."

"Perhaps, Counselor. But I have discovered that the investigators have no sense of humor. Is a lack of a sense of humor a requirement for becoming a temporal official?"

Beverly's next sound turned into a cough.

Deanna glared at Beverly before she answered Data's question. "Though a lack of a sense of humor is not part of the official job description for the temporal police, it does seem to help them do their job."

"Most efficiently," Beverly concurred.

"What happened, Data?" Deanna was somewhat surprised by the intensity of the disgusted feelings that were emanating from Data.

"They questioned the veracity and accuracy of my reports, especially about Zefrem Cochrane. I am not accustomed to such treatment from my fellow Starfleet officers."

Deanna stoically refrained from giggling. Beverly did not. It was becoming obvious to Deanna that the reason for Data's upset feelings was because someone had questioned the correctness of his reports. Whether Data knew it or not, he had acquired a sense of pride along with his emotions chip.

"Data, almost everyone else finds their devotion to detail to be aggravating at best. You are not alone in your opinion of the temporal investigators."

Beverly considered Data's attitude and guessed the reason behind his choice of attire. "Data, I take it that you want to get off of Mars unnoticed? Get away from whomsoever might be paying too much notice to you?"

"Yes, Doctor."

"Hide out somewhere?"

"Hide out…" Data searched his data banks. "Do you mean skip town? Evaporate with the foggy dew?"

Beverly broke in. "Do you get the picture, Data?"

"Picture?" He considered her words. "You are comparing my desire to avoid contact with the temporal investigators as a situation similar to that of Captain Picard's attempts to evade consorting with Ambassador Lwaxana Troi…"

"We'd be more than happy to have you join us on our trip to DS 5," Deanna added as she tried not to laugh out loud at Data's expression.

Data considered Deanna's offer. "Perhaps Captain Picard would not wish for me to accompany you."

"What?" both ladies chorused together.

Red strands of hair bounced as Beverly vigorously shook her head in disagreement. "Data, you know how highly Captain Picard regards you."

"Then why did the captain specifically tell the temporal investigators that I was the _**only**_ _Enterprise _officer with whom they should communicate concerning the Borg incident in the 21st century?"

"Maybe Captain Picard knew that you would be the best, most capable officer for the job?" Deanna suggested.

"You do not think that he was punishing me?"

Beverly could not ignore the appeal from her friend for validation. "Data, did it ever occur to you that Captain Picard might wish to annoy the temporal investigators-instead of the other way around? Don't you think that Captain Picard believes that you are more than capable of fielding any of the investigator's questions? In fact, you are probably the only person in Starfleet that they can't intimidate. And that is an attribute that I am sure Captain Picard considered before he asked you to deal with them."

Data considered Beverly's words and decided that they were logical. "Then, I will finish the making of our travel arrangements."

**=/\= ='/\'= =/\=**

"Thank you for the excellent dinner, Captain Pournelle,…",Jean-Luc Picard politely stated as he placed his cloth napkin by the fork side of his dessert plate. He glanced about the cramped, basic quarters. They were in one of the few quarters that was left habitable in the guest level of DS 5. Right now, all the usable quarters were all occupied by exhausted station personnel. "…especially under the circumstances."

"Thank you for being such an entertaining, extraordinarily helpful companion," Captain Pournelle responded, "especially since only a few basic recipes survived in my replicator's memories. You've done a hell of a lot of work these past few days on the station, especially for someone who occupies a la-di-da captain's chair instead of working a real job like running a space station."

"I always thought that space station duty was where starship captains went when they retired," he suggested.

"Guinan said that you were an_ annoying_ man. I now know why." She pushed aside her dinner plate before adding, "By the way, my name is Anna."

"I do believe that Guinan talks too much-Anna."

"But only to those of us that she calls 'friends'. I have found that anyone that Guinan designates as a friend is usually someone worth getting to know, Jean-Luc." She stood and went to the replicator and ordered a black coffee, and a tea-Earl Grey.

Picard was surprised that the lady knew his preference. And he appreciated the courtesy. "I do believe Guinan has been saying much more about me than the occasional expletive before my name," he observed as he took his tea from the captain.

She returned to her chair by the crystalline free-form table, and sat down facing her guest. "I take it then that Guinan has never mentioned my name in conjunction with the Blue Tattoo Café, a drink she concocted named 'Bite Your Head Off', a fan dance, and twenty-two randy Argelians…"

Picard smiled. "Now, that sounds like a shore leave that I wish I'd been party to…"

"Of course, in those days, I wasn't married…"

He sipped some tea, hid his reaction when he realized that the tea wasn't exactly Earl Grey, and then studied his fellow captain, a woman who had never commanded a starship yet was capable of saving a space station.

Anna was about his age, somewhat stocky, with a pale porcelain complexion, beautiful blue eyes and long dark hair that she usually had pulled up into a chignon. She was a no-nonsense, brusque sort, whose comprehension of her duty seemed to equal his own.

"Is that where you met Guinan? On Sarona VII?"

"We shared a cell together for two days. The tales she told-I don't know if any of them were true."

"Guinan does have a way of obfuscating the details…"

"But only the details-never the truth." Captain Pournelle finished off the last bite of her dessert. "My shipmates managed to bail us out. I was serving on board the _Mandela_ back then as a science officer. They managed to get me back to the ship without the captain ever knowing." She grinned. "At least, Captain Turhan never officially acknowledged the mess I'd made of my shore leave. However, I spent the next six months doing dogs body jobs and scrubbing Jefferies tubes during my off-duty hours. He forced me to contemplate my tendency toward youthful indiscretions and their possible impact on my career." She would have continued reminiscing, but her comm badge beeped on her grey uniform.

"Pournelle here."

An anonymous voice stated, "Captain, we have detected a two degree rise in temperature inside one of the Kataanian stasis chambers. Should I send a med team to investigate?"

Pournelle glanced over at the man who was already out of his chair and aiming for the door, then responded. "No, Fred. They've got too much to do as it is. I'll take care of it."

She stood, brushing off a few crumbs. "Well, what are we waiting for, Jean-Luc? Unless you'd rather stay here and have another slice of not-quite-cherry pie?"

He quickly refused her additional dessert offer. It took him a moment to realize that she had been teasing him.

Walking together toward the door, she continued, "I presume that you didn't spend all of your time sitting on your duff in your too-comfy chair. Do you still remember how to read a tricorder?"

"Oh, I escaped from the _Enterprise's_ bridge now and then, whenever I could elude the watchful eye of my Number One."

"Mother hen type, eh?"

"Yes."

"I'm cursed with one of those myself."

A short time after beaming down to Ming, they climbed a steep ramp and entered into the near black dimness of the Kataanian ship. Picard flashed his palm beacon about the first room.

Captain Pournelle directed her beam toward a panel marked with Cyrillic type glyphs. "Can you translate any of their language, Jean-Luc?"

Picard stepped inside, focusing his light on a marked panel. Sounding somewhat surprised that he could, he said, "I can read the language on the control board. It's their guidance system. This area is a bridge."

"Amazing. Their aerospace technology might have been primitive, but they obviously were highly advanced in understanding the workings of the humanoid mind."

Picard was startled to realize that Anna had really read and comprehended his original incident report.

Walking slowly about the small bridge, Picard kept examining, then identifying the various labeled panels, speaking into his tricorder as he went about.

"A little more of your translations and the universal translator should kick in," Pournelle observed as she brushed aside some caked dust on a flat panel screen. "Do my eyes deceive me, or are these dials actually analog?"

"The Kataanians were not exactly advanced space travelers," Picard observed.

"Still, look how far it has gotten them." She rubbed a few more dials clean with her sleeve. "My chief engineer said that there is still some sort of active power source."

Picard moved a few toggle switches about. Low level lighting appeared. "Give me a few more minutes and I might be able to access some of the data banks."

Pournelle jerked her head toward an open hatch. "The first tier of stasis chambers are in there, including the one that's changing. The other chambers are in the adjacent wings."

"_Mon Dieu_," Picard whispered as his button pushing got some results.

"What? What is it?"

Picard stared at the dimly lit, flickering screen. "If I am reading this information correctly, this ship was but one of fifteen ships that were launched from Ressik before the Kataan sun went nova."

"I wonder what the Borg did with the rest of them?"

"That is, if the Borg captured any more in the first place," Picard observed. He picked up his tricorder and moved toward the open hatch. "Let's see what's going on in there."

Using his tricorder, he quickly located the changing stasis tube. Staring at the solid metal stasis tube, he scanned it several times before he stated, "The temperature is still rising."

Using her tricorder, Captain Pournelle confirmed his observation. "Whether we want it to or not, this chamber is defrosting. And we don't even know enough about their technology to know whether or not this is normal or a malfunction."

Picard flashed his light about until he located a panel. Walking over to it, he managed to turn on some screens. "The Kataanians were a very practical people. They either left behind precise instructions for reviving the people in stasis, or this change in the chamber could be part of their programming that somehow was triggered by something that we did."

"Yes, that makes sense; having one person revive in order to see if it's safe to restore the rest," Anna agreed. She went to the front of the tube. "Picard, there's some writing on the side, here."

He looked at it, then translated, "The Administrator, Raydan."

"Mean anything?"

"The Kataanians called their elected officials by their formal functions. 'Administrator' was one such title."

"Presumably this means that there is an important guy inside, eh, Jean-Luc?"

"I cannot say that with any certainty. He could just be the designated administrator of their revivals."

Picard checked his tricorder readings again. "The temperature is rising at a constant rate of a degree every twenty-two point five minutes."

"Then this thawing is proceeding at a planned rate."

"We cannot discount the possibility of Borg interference. The Kataanian technology would have posed no difficulties for the Borg to decipher."

"Are the Borg really that insidious?"

"Yes."

His reply was curt, but she sensed that he was revealing a great deal about his personal understanding of the Borg. She tapped her comm badge. "Security, send a two-man detail to the Kataanian ship. I want this ship under close scrutiny until either Captain Picard or I tell you otherwise."

With a slight nod indicating his approval, Picard went to the next stasis tube and searched for another placard.

Waving her tricorder about, Anna was curious about Jean-Luc's actions. "Are some of the other chambers showing signs of change?"

"No. I don't detect any change." He brushed some dust off some lettering. "I am endeavoring to see if I recognize any of the other names or functions."

Puzzled by his actions, she mentally resolved to double check the records again about Captain Jean-Luc Picard's encounter with the Kataanian probe. He was behaving as if he were looking for someone in particular.

"_Merde."_

He said this curse with enough emphasis that it echoed about the room.

"What?"

"These stasis chambers are not all marked with names. Some only have numbers."

Captain Pournelle's comm badge beeped again.

"Captain, we need you in Ops," an unknown voice stated.

"Go, Anna. I'll stay here and see what else I can discover on my own," Picard ordered, even as he went to the next stasis tube and started checking it over.

She thought about giving him an argument or two about who was really in command around here, but watching him become absorbed in examining this next tube convinced her that it would accomplish little if she did. He was going to stay here with or without her permission.

"All right, Jean-Luc. I'll see if I can spare a science tech to assist you. In the meantime, I'll post one of the guards inside the ship. Holler if you need any help."

As she climbed out of the ship, she found Picard's lack of response to her words to be somewhat troublesome. It was almost as if he were absorbed by something a thousand years away.

Two hours later, Captain Pournelle was contacted by one of the security guards.

"What is it, Ensign Beckett?" Captain Pournelle asked, even as she continued to focus most of her attention upon the repair reports flashing across her personal inner sanctum view screen. Her engineers had achieved the near-impossible and restored central Ops and her office to an almost fully functional state.

"It's Captain Picard, Captain."

She put down her padd. "What's he doing?"

"He just ordered me out of the ship. I think he's going to lift up the cover on one of the stasis tubes."

"Damn," she mumbled. "I'll be right there." As she beamed down to Ming she couldn't help but ask herself, "What the hell is that damned man doing?"

Her second in command, a Lieutenant Commander Nulan Lenear met her at the transport site.

"Nully, what are you doing here?"

"I thought that I'd accompany you."

"Not necessary."

"Somehow, I thought that you'd say that." The tall lieutenant commander of mixed French Caribbean heritage flashed his captain a too-knowing, bright white smile. "But I've got some work to do here on Ming. So, keep your comm badge open, and I'll come a'runnin' in case you need me."

"That'll be the day," she muttered. "You act like I can't take care of myself…" But what she'd said was loud enough for her Number One to hear. Even as his grin grew bigger, she caught the personal, completely unprofessional concern in his look. _She wasn't quite ready to acknowledge it-yet. But some day she would…_

"Captain, you certainly can take care of yourself and the rest of us any day. But who knows what nightmares Picard might be encountering? He's been through a lot lately-maybe too much. I mean, he was on a _medical_ leave on Mars, wasn't he?"

"And here I thought that you never tapped into the subspace gossip lines."

"How else would I know what goes on around here? I'm usually the last one you tell…"

Since the exact opposite was actually the truth, Pournelle only rolled her eyes, assumed her long-suffering captain's mien, and then went over to the Kataanian ship and entered it.

"Picard?"

She checked the first room and was surprised to discover that somehow Picard had cranked up the illumination to sixty percent. Turning off her palm beacon, she climbed up a short ladder, opened a hatch, then entered the next room. The elusive captain was nowhere in sight. But he had obviously been there. She could see that each one of the stasis tubes had portions of their surfaces wiped clean. She could only guess that the cleaned areas contained writing.

Climbing into the adjacent room, Picard was not there either. But he'd been there as well. She stopped in front of one of the chambers. Picard had pried off its cover. Inside was dust and the remnants of its former unfortunate occupant from a thousand years ago. The remains were encased in some sort of clear inner tube. She touched the curved transparent surface and grimaced.

"Some sort of glass liner within a metal shell…" Then she realized the full import of what Picard had done. She whapped her comm badge even as she scanned the area with her tricorder. "Lenear-put this whole area under a quarantine force field. Check for any anomalous readings. The integrity of one of the stasis chambers may have been compromised."

She hit her comm badge again. "Picard, where the hell are you?" No answer. Again.

Frustrated, and now beginning to actually worry, she climbed into the next room rather quickly. It was darker here. There was light, but only a little. But there was enough for her to see Picard kneeling by a glowing stasis tube whose cover had been pried off. He was staring into the luminescent chamber as if he had discovered something more precious beyond life itself. The expression on his face was almost indescribable.

For a while she stood perfectly still, monitoring him and the area with her tricorder. He didn't seem to notice her presence. And there didn't seem to be any unfriendly bugs floating in the air. She didn't call out to him. Instead, she observed him from afar, wondering yet again what the hell was really going on here. _What was Picard doing?_ She had too many questions and not enough answers. Yet, she was loathe to disturb the very man who might have them.

Suddenly, Picard leaned forward and placed the palm of his right hand against the glass chamber.

Though she couldn't be absolutely sure from this distance, there seemed to be the glints of tears streaming down his face.

**=/\= ='/\'= =/\=**

"Are we there yet?"

Data checked his instrument panels, and considered the possibility that he would be obliged to turn off his emotions chip before the end of this journey. Counselor Troi had asked that specific question five times within the past two hours. He had never considered the counselor to be irritating-until now. They had been traveling for four days.

"At Warp 5, we will be arriving at DS 5 in five hours, fifty-two minutes and thirty-four seconds, Counselor Troi."

Deanna displayed a petulant frown. "Are you sure, Data?" She was very sure that Data had yet to realize that she was teasing him.

"Would you prefer for me to state the arrival time in some format other than Federation Standard Time?"

"All right, Data. I'll accept your word about our arrival time." Deanna was enjoying herself. Data needed further experience with humans and their occasionally annoying behavior. She went off on another tangent. Deanna glanced about the luxurious bridge of their ship. "Data, tell me again how you got the use of this admiral's yacht?"

Data's reply was uninformative. "As I stated three times before in the past four hours and nine minutes, Counselor, Admiral Nechayev was most willing to grant my request to borrow her yacht, the _Sakai_."

"In other words, you've really got some juicy blackmail material on the admiral," Deanna suggested.

"I do not." Data said nothing more, but he considered the purpose behind Counselor Troi's words.

Deanna persisted. "And you really are not going to tell me what you have, are you? Even if I say 'pretty please'?"

"Counselor, you are always pretty whether you say 'please' or not."

"Data! Thank you, I think." Deanna couldn't quite decide if Data had turned the tables on her; whether or not he was now teasing her instead of vice versa.

He continued, droning on in a calm, informative manner. "Counselor, did you know that your behavior patterns are beginning to resemble those of your mother on an increasing exponential basis? Is this a Betazoid family trait, when you achieve a certain maturity? Or, have you entered your _Phase?"_

Data ceased speaking when Deanna screeched in his ear. In the chair behind the pilot's seat, Beverly choked on her own laughter.

Data would have inquired further into the nature of the source of Dr. Crusher's merriment, when his comm panel started beeping. Pushing a command bar in response, the image of Captain Pournelle appeared on the view screen. Seated in her office, it was obvious to all of the _Enterprise_ officers that this was a Starfleet captain in a state of perturbation.

"I am Captain Pournelle of Deep Space Five. Are you the cavalry coming from the _Enterprise?"_

Deanna quickly spoke up. "Yes, we are the cavalry. I am Counselor Troi." She gestured toward Beverly. "This is CMO, Dr. Beverly Crusher, and our pilot is Commander Data."

Beverly voiced her fears. "Captain, why do you need the cavalry? Is something the matter with Jean-Luc?" She immediately corrected herself. "I mean, Captain Picard?"

"You tell me!" Pournelle snapped back, not indicating that she had marked Beverly's use of the captain's first name. Either Captain Picard ran a far looser ship than gossip had indicated, or Dr. Crusher was more than just the good captain's CMO.

"What is the matter, Captain Pournelle?" Data politely asked.

"I don't like it when I find out that my deck is not just stacked, but that I am also missing a couple of cards! Especially when I thought that the dealer was on my side!"

"Translation?" Data asked, quite politely, again.

"Captain Picard is up to something. You folks had better be able to tell me what."

"I think that the sooner we get there, the better we will be able to answer your questions," Counselor Troi suggested.

"Agreed. Go to Warp 9 and get here as soon as possible," Anna ordered.

Data started to mention that Captain Pournelle did not have the authority to order Warp 9, but after catching the expressions on his traveling companion's faces, and knowing that Dr. Crusher was quite capable of turning him off if he did not immediately comply with the station commander's order, Data confirmed, "Captain Pournelle, we will be there in twelve minutes. At Warp 9."

"Good. I'll meet you when you dock. Pournelle out."

After the transmission ended, Data announced, "I shall erase this message from the logs."

"Data?" Beverly warned, not understanding Data's reasoning.

"The logs of the admiral's yachts are permitted that option. _Admiral's privilege._ And I do not think that we would wish for any admiral to investigate the reasons behind Captain Pournelle's current concerns about Captain Picard."

Beverly now understood. "You're right, Data. It's best if no one asks any questions."

Data added, casting his most guileless gaze upon Deanna, "However, I will make note of the kind of traveling companion that you are, Counselor Troi. I now understand why Commander Riker has avoided accompanying you in a shuttle craft for a journey of any length. And it is not just because you tend to pilot your space ships in to planets."

**=/\= ='/\'= =/\=**

Quietly moving about her office, Anna was not surprised when Nully walked in without knocking. Of course, the door to her office was still missing. Yet, he did have a way of knowing when she needed him.

"Lenear…"

"Yes, Captain?"

"Anything unusual turn up in your check of the bio-filters?"

"No, Captain. I'll continue keeping an eye on them, though. Everything is normal." But he just had to add, "So far."

"Picard's officers are due here in a few minutes. Tell them that they'll have to sleep on board their admiral's yacht. There's no room here at this inn." She clicked off her view screen. "I'll be going over to the _Sakai_ when they dock."

"What's got you so worried, Captain?"

"I haven't a real clue, Nully… Nothing specific… Just Picard-he is not behaving like the legend he is supposed to be."

"Few living legends actually do. Take yourself for example," Nully sweetly observed.

She ignored her first officer's insubordination. "I've read every file there is on Kataan. But it all only contains diddlysquat. Certainly, nothing to explain what's really going on with Picard. I hope that those Big E officers have some answers when they get here. I don't like mysteries when it comes to involving the potential safety of my space station."

Thirty-five minutes later, Data, Deanna and Beverly beamed down to Ming. Walking the long corridors toward the ship's storage bay, they discussed what they'd learned. Their meeting with Captain Pournelle had not been reassuring. That space station captain was justifiably worried.

For a change, though, it was Beverly who seemed to suspect more about the situation than the others.

"Did Captain Picard ever discuss the more intimate details of his family life in Ressik with you?" Beverly cautiously asked as she mentally debated just how much she could reveal of a professional nature to the ship's counselor.

"Nothing specific. At least, nothing about having a family. I thought that the grief he felt afterward was because of the loss of the Kataanian race, and not because of the death of people that he knew." Deanna sighed. "You know how difficult the captain can be. Discussing personal feelings never comes easily with that man. He can be very obstinate at times."

"Tell me about it…" Beverly's laughter sounded strained even to her ears. "After Jack's death, I didn't see him for many years. He alone felt responsible for what happened to Jack, and he wouldn't hear any other argument to the contrary. Especially from me. And now…"

"He seems to be repeating former behavior patterns. The captain told me more about what happened to him as Locutus than what he had experienced from the Kataanian probe. I certainly never sensed such a complicated emotional situation when he regained consciousness after the probe's tether beam was severed."

"Yet, Captain Picard gave me the distinct impression that you knew, Deanna…"

Data analyzed the doctor's statements. "Did you acquire this personal knowledge of the captain's feelings about Kataan from your bonding experience on KesPrytt, Doctor?"

"Yes, Data, I did."

Data persisted in his search for understanding. "Counselor, you never sensed anything unusual from the captain?"

"Data, I have felt some emotions. But it seemed to be mainly confusion and regret at the time of the incident. I had no idea about the true nature of what he'd experienced. He disguised his deep feelings rather successfully."

"How?"

"Enough, Data!" Beverly ordered as they reached the ramp going up to the ship's hatch. "Let's go find the source and ask the captain himself what he is doing. I am sure he has a reason. He always does."

But they didn't have to look for him. He was waiting for them on the sublight ship's bridge.

Beverly immediately scanned him with her medical tricorder.

"Stop fussing, Doctor. I am all right."

"If you were all right, Captain Pournelle wouldn't be so upset," she retorted.

"Nonsense," was his response as he dodged her scanner.

"Dr. Crusher is right, Captain," Counselor Troi protested.

"Counselor…"

Deanna knew his warning when she heard one. "Yes, sir?"

"There is more going on here than just the obvious-regardless of what you may have been told."

"Shall I recount for you what Captain Pournelle has said, Captain?" Data dutifully asked.

"Later, Data."

Beverly still stuck her scanner at him whenever she could. "You're vitals are elevated." He looked at her as if he really didn't care what she said. And then something caught her attention. Beverly noticed something in his eyes that she had not seen before. "You've found Eline's body, haven't you?"

"Yes. At least a body that resembles the being I once knew. She is still in stasis in the upper left level." He spoke as if these words meant nothing personal to him.

But Deanna knew better. "You recognize most of the people in stasis, don't you, Captain?" the ship's counselor asked as she tried to scan her captain in her own Betazed way.

"I know them. Or, at least I recognize their appearances."

Data remarked, "Captain, the probability of you actually encountering the very Kataanians from your incident after their being a thousand years in stasis, and under these extraordinary conditions-why, Captain, I cannot actually calculate the probability-at least not without access to a main frame computer equal to the _Enterprise's _computer."

"Mr. Data!" Picard stated, disguising his annoyance. "You can calculate the probabilities later." His exasperated manner disappeared to be replaced by a grimmer attitude. He addressed everyone. "Whatever is occurring here, there is one thing that I know with absolute certainty-this is not a chance encounter or a coincidence."

"Agreed, sir," Data stated. "But, what is it?"

"Mr. Data, none of us has those answers just yet. But we will."

He leaned back against a low bulkhead, not willing to admit to his officers just how weary he really felt. Their presence was at least a tangible reality in this place of dangerous, seductive illusions.

"Thank you for coming," Picard admitted. "However, I was not expecting you for at least two more days."

Data quickly explained. "We came in Admiral Nechayev's yacht, the _Sakai._ She can travel at a greater warp speed than most shuttle crafts. And under these circumstances, we felt that haste was necessary."

Picard knew better. "Mr. Data, you skill in dissembling to your captain is improving. You are almost as good as my other senior officers." In spite of the situation, he was somewhat amused by Data's progress. "You can tell me how you talked Admiral Nechayev into loaning you the yacht, later. As for now, may I assume that Captain Pournelle requested your presence post haste?"

Data automatically answered, "Yes, captain."

Deanna added, "Captain Pournelle was worried about your behavior. She said that it seemed a bit unusual - even for one of Guinan's friends." Deanna didn't add her opinion about this. She suspected that her captain already knew it.

Data recounted the station commander's remarks. "Captain Pournelle said that you personally kicked standard Starfleet protocols out the nearest air lock and straight into a Denebian hell. Judging by her facial expressions and the decibel levels of her speech pattern, she was not pleased with what you were doing, Captain, when she interviewed us."

"Yes, I supposed that I should have warned Anna."

If Beverly was surprised by Jean-Luc's use of another captain's first name, she didn't show it.

Picard explained, "My official Starfleet reports contained little information beyond the bare facts of the Kataanian culture and existence." He caught Data's questioning look. "My reports to Starfleet were non-informative when it came to my personal experiences with certain Kataanians. After all, before I arrived at DS 5, I did not even consider it to be a reasonable possibility that the Kataanians that were found could have been the beings from my induced dream."

"Yes, sir."

"And you saw no reason to tell Starfleet about what really happened-all that you experienced," Beverly stated with just a trace of anger to her voice.

"Beverly, you know some of what I felt; experienced. Would you have told Starfleet every intimate detail if it had happened to you?"

"Well, I'd at least have told my CMO or my ship's counselor about it when it happened!" she argued.

"And be quickly certified unfit for active duty? I think not, Doctor!"

Deanna sensed a looming quarrel, so she interrupted them. "None of that matters, right now, Doctor. Captain. We have to investigate what is occurring here."

Picard acknowledged her words with only a look.

Data then observed, "The body in stasis that is reviving, Captain-I calculate that he should be…", Data searched his memory banks for the appropriate word, "…thawed in twenty hours, two minutes."

Closing his eyes for a moment, directing his thoughts, Captain Picard had to allow that Data was right. There were things to do.

"Mr. Data, please take the information from my tricorder and use it to learn as much as you can about this ship and its contents. Doctor Crusher, would you check out the bodies' medical condition, and make whatever preparations are necessary to cope with the Administrator's awakening. Counselor, you will assist me."

"Captain, you will have to tell me more about what you experienced from the Kataanian probe before I can reasonably be expected to assist you." Deanna Troi replied as if she were the consummate professional. However, she was not exactly pleased by Captain Picard's failure to confess the more significant details about his experience to her. But that was something that she would discuss with him in private. And before she wrote up her official reports for Starfleet's review.

"Counselor." He looked at her, silently acknowledging that sooner or later he would have to offer his amends to her. "Of course."

An hour later, Crusher and Troi stood in front of several stasis chambers that had been identified by Captain Picard. Data had removed their metal covers after checking to make sure that there was not danger of alien biological contamination..

Still dormant in their tubes were bodies that Picard identified as Eline, Meribor, Batai, Kamin, Administrator, and others. They were of ages that differed from Picard's final memories.

Eline, for example, though obviously an adult female, was nowhere near the mature age she had been when she'd died of heart failure in Kamin's arms.

Meribor was an adult as well with a baby son. Her brother Batai appeared to be a teenager. The older Batai was the middle aged man that Picard had once called friend.

Picard recognized the Administrator as well as many of the other bodies in stasis as people who had lived in Ressik during his time there. They were all as they had once been at various times in Picard's memories.

Silently observing the way that Captain Picard was walking from stasis chamber to stasis chamber identifying each body, Data finally announced, "I agree, Captain. It is no longer within the realm of mathematical probabilities that your knowledge of the Borg and the Kataanian ship is a coincidence.

Slowly, Picard turned around to face his friend. "The only questions are whether or not this constitutes a threat. And if the Borg arranged for the probe and my memories."

"Or, it may be the other way around, Captain." Deanna's voice was soft but it carried a bit of hope to Picard's battered heart.

Picard tugged his uniform down before he looked over at his resident Betazed. "Meaning what, Counselor?" Then he noticed his CMO appearing perturbed as she still scanned the tubes. "Beverly, have you detected any brain activity in the Kataanians?"

"No, captain. I don't register any brain activity at all." She walked away from the tubes to join him. "Of course, under the circumstances, the best that I can say is that my medical tricorder's range is limited. If we had access to the _Enterprise E's_ sickbay, I could provide a more accurate diagnosis. I am trying to create a physiological work-up under very primitive conditions. If I didn't actually know that these bodies were in stasis, this medical tricorder would be telling me that they were dead."

Deanna silently shook her head in disagreement.

"Counselor, what do you sense? Do you detect some sort of telepathic activity amongst the Kataanians?"

"No identifiable thought or emotion." She searched for a metaphor. "It feels like the trace of an echo bouncing around a cavern. I can't quite hear it, yet I sense its reverberations so that I know that it is there." She paused, as if she were considering something else. "Captain, I don't recall any mention of the Kataanians have psychic abilities in your reports."

"When I experienced my link with their probe, I was not aware of any."

Beverly spoke up with a growing sense of comprehension. "Yet, they must have some ability. They designed your other life to be so very perfect-as if all of your hidden wishes and desires and needs were to be fulfilled."

"They even knew all my regrets…", Picard whispered.

"It was as if they had custom-made the ideal life for you to experience, Captain." Beverly was doing her best to sound professional, rather than to give in to the growing sense of distress she was feeling as she contemplated how Jean-Luc would respond to a living, breathing Eline. She continued, "The Kataanians originated an idyllic world for you, created to fulfill all of your emotional needs."

Staring at Beverly, almost regretting that she had ever once briefly shared such insight into his past thanks to the KesPrytt, Picard knew that she at least understood about his still lingering emotional ties to Eline. _And that she didn't like it one bit. She was worried. And jealous._

For a moment, there was silence, as Jean-Luc and Beverly tried to be what the other needed. It was as if they were still communicating on a different, briefly intimate level.

"Captain?" Data broke the connection between the captain and the doctor.

"I have conducted a search of all my memories. When I was linked into the Borg collective through you as Locutus, on Stardate 44001.6, there was no memory within the collective mind of the Borg about Kataan, this sublight ship, or its occupants. There were thirteen other memories of bodies in cryogenic stasis in the Borg memories. But these were of races from Theta IV, Sigma Draconis II…"

Abruptly turning, leaving Data to continue reciting his little list without him, Picard went into the darkness of the corridor, till he was far away from them. Then, and only then, did he let go and release the fears that he'd been hiding within his heart, tormenting his soul. He had been so afraid that his precious memories of his life in Ressik had in actuality been a product of the fiendish inventiveness of the Borg. Data had just told him otherwise.

_His remembrances were still pure…_

Beverly would have gone after Jean-Luc but Deanna stopped her. "Let him be, Beverly."

"He needs me."

"Yes, he does, Beverly. Eventually. But right now, he needs to be alone. He has to reconcile his feelings with what he knows now actually exists. He doesn't really wish to relinquish the fantasy that he's cherished for the past few years, even though he now knows that it may be his duty to do so. That much I can sense from him."

"Fascinating," Data observed. "Counselor, Doctor, what can I do to help the captain?"

Deanna answered his question. "We can continue to gather the facts and try to make sense of what is developing. And then, when Raydan revives, that is, if he ever does regain consciousness, we might be able to get some actual, factual answers."

"Agreed, counselor." Data returned to scanning the interior of this room again. "The Borg may not have controlled the Kataanian probe when the captain was linked to it, but they are involved."

Beverly really wasn't paying that much attention to what Data was saying. She only felt a great need to talk to Deanna alone. So she suggested, "I've only briefly scanned the adjacent room and stasis tubes, Mr. Data. Why don't you go and check it out for me? I need to rest for a moment."

Data studied the doctor, decided from the expression on her face that she wished to discuss something in private with Counselor Troi, and then agreed with Beverly's suggestion. "As you wish, Doctor." He disappeared, climbing down into the corridor that led to the next storage area.

Beverly and Deanna sat down on a long ledge by a control panel.

"Beverly, you obviously know a great deal more about what happened to Captain Picard than I do. More than I have ever even sensed. Can you tell me what you know?"

"I only know bits and pieces. It's not as if Jean-Luc relived his entire memory that night we shared on KesPrytt. Most of what I know, I picked up from his dreams."

"Which was?"

"Jean-Luc lived a fully, happy life on Kataan. He had a wife, a son and a daughter. And a grandson. He loved his wife with a glory that has never been matched in this existence."

"Is that why?…" Deanna abruptly stopped speaking, aware that she might be treading into dangerous, too-personal waters with her next question, needing to as it, yet not wanting to upset her friend.

"Why _what_, Deanna?" Beverly knew what Deanna was going to have asked. "After KesPrytt? Is that why I turned Captain Jean-Luc Picard down during that intimate dinner in his quarters that the whole crew still seems to gossip about now and then?"

"Well, now that you mention it… I never really did understand your reasoning behind your refusal."

"I was afraid, Deanna. Afraid of the depth of the love that Jean-Luc still felt for Eline. Before he'd gone to sleep by that campfire, Jean-Luc had confessed to me that he had once loved me-passionately. Utterly. Then he told me that he no longer felt that he loved me. That now, we were just good friends." She made a sound of utter disbelief, then continued. "_Platonic_? Hah!" It took her a moment to regain her composure. "And when Jean-Luc finally went to sleep, I was subjected to some of the most erotic, sensual and frustrating dreams that I could have never imagined. At first, they were solely of me from our past. The outfits I wore… How he wanted to remove them… The way he wanted to remove them… Where he wanted to remove them… And then…"

Even in the indirect lighting, Deanna could see a flush growing about Beverly's cheeks.

"Go on, Beverly. What were the rest of the dreams about?"

"Jean-Luc kept dreaming about what it would be like to make love to me in almost every place imaginable, every room imaginable-including some places that Riker never even thought of, on board the _Enterprise D._

A great deal of self-control was required, but Deanna did not grin. She'd always suspected Captain Jean-Luc Picard of having an inventive and intriguing libido. But now was not the appropriate time to allude to her ideas. "Captain Picard still has carnal fantasies of you, in spite of being your commanding officer?"

"Don't sound too surprised, Deanna. I'm still enough of a woman to entice a man."

"I didn't mean…", Deanna hastily interjected.

Beverly ignored her words. "In Jean-Luc's dreams, I was his woman of fire and flesh; what Browning once called _a woman of infinite passion… and pain_…"

"So naturally, after sharing his dreams with you, you did not believe Captain Picard when he told you that he no longer loved you because his subconscious had just exposed his real feelings."

"For a few moments on KesPrytt, as I stoked that campfire into the night, I really believed that Jean-Luc loved me with a true, wholehearted, eternal love." Beverly wiped away a lost tear from her cheek. "I was actually willing to tell the entire ship that I loved Jean-Luc and that the captain of the _Enterprise_ loved me back, come hell, de-evolving reptiles or Starfleet Command."

"And then, what happened? What caused you to change your mind?"

"Eline. His dreams changed… He dreamt of her. And I could not compete with that fantasy."

"You were jealous?" Deanna stated the obvious.

Beverly reddened again. "Yes. How could I rival Eline? She was his absolute, perfect love and lover, satisfying all of his needs; his light between truth and intellect. Eline was to Jean-Luc as Beatrice was to Dante; the woman he adored who guided him through the heavenly purgatory of his life as Kamin."

"Heavenly purgatory?" Deanna was somewhat confused by this description.

A whisper broke through the darkness, startling them both.

"My life with Eline and our children and friends was indeed a paradisiacal existence. I'd never known, never even imagined such blessedness before. As a young man, I had always known my chosen path would be as one alone, as a Starfleet command officer. But on Kataan, I was shown a new way of life I didn't even know I wanted-much less needed-until I experienced it. Even though it took a few years living with Eline, after a while, even the _Enterprise_ was no longer real-no longer mattered to me. Only my new life was important. Only my new life was real."

"Yet you referred to it as a purgatory as well?" Deanna probed, reverting back into her counselor mode.

"I couldn't save them. I tried so hard to prevent it… It was indeed a purgatory because I knew as Kamin that we all would die when our sun went nova. Can you imagine what it was like to live knowing that your own grandson would never live to reach adulthood? And that there was absolutely nothing that I could do to prevent it?"

Moving slowly as if he was expecting to hear an objection, he came over to Beverly, paused, and then sat down next to her.

She was finding it difficult to look at him. "How long were you eavesdropping?" she accused, shaken by what she knew that he must have overheard. Yet also hoping that he had not heard all of it.

"Long enough." He leaned closer to her, acting somewhat self-consciously as if he had done something for which he should offer his apologies. "It is my fault that I never realized just how much personal information you gleaned from me during our joined at the hip experience on KesPrytt."

"You slept. I didn't."

He offered her a smile full of warmth, understanding and reassurement.

Beverly was astonished.

Deanna could only move aside and observe, but she too, was surprised by the captain's attitude. She recognized that she was an unnecessary accessory to Jean-Luc and Beverly's conversation. But there was a part of her that was akin to her mother. When she indulged in matchmaking, she liked to watch what developed.

Jean-Luc's concern for Beverly was obvious in his gaze. Yet those very endearing, beautiful hazel eyes also held an unexpected twinkle.

"Beverly, I must admit that I am pleased to learn that it was not my choice of an aperitif during that rather unforgettable dinner after KesPrytt, that caused you to rush away from me in disapprobation; refusing everything that I was offering. For a while, I truly did wonder what despicable sin it was that I had committed."

"Damn…" Beverly would have buried her head in the closest sandbox if there had been such an amenity conveniently located on board the Kataanian vessel. She opted for blushing instead.

Deanna thought that she heard Beverly mutter, _"Go away…"_

If Captain Picard had heard it, he gave no sign. "When we are finished with the Kataanians, Dr. Crusher, perhaps you might be amenable to another dinner where we can further discuss personal matters in private?" He cast an accusatory eye toward his counselor. _"Alone?"_

Even as Beverly tensed over this offer, Deanna felt the start of a grin that she could not control. She sensed that Jean-Luc Picard was beginning to feel like his old self again. That is, he was approaching as normal a state of mind as one could possibly have under these most bizarre of circumstances.

"_Say yes, Beverly,"_ Deanna instructed.

Beverly nodded. Her 'yes' was barely audible.

But he heard it. And he relaxed; relieved. Not that he outwardly revealed such personal feelings. "Good." For a second he seriously debated whether or not he should kiss his CMO. If Deanna hadn't been there, he decided that he would have. However, more practical thoughts dominated. "Now, let's go see what Mr. Data has discovered." He looked over at Deanna as if there was still some unsettled business between them. "Unless Counselor Troi is not yet finished with her inquisition."

**=/\= ='/\'= =/\=**

Checking the time yet again, pacing around her desk, her curiosity finally got the better of her. The _Enterprise_ officers had been on board the ship of lost souls for over two hours. Captain Pournelle just had to find out what was going on. She put down her padd and returned to Ming.

Somewhat surprised, she found all four officers on the sublight ship's bridge, working on bringing the systems on line. She was impressed the Picard's senior officers were so adaptable. _They might even make it as officers on board a star base…_

Data was the first to notice her presence. "Captain Pournelle, have you come to help?"

Picard was underneath a panel working on some wire couplings. Pulling himself out from below, he observed the lady too. "Ah, Anna. We're making progress, even if we have to replace every wire one by one. Come and see." Sliding out some more so that he could sit up, Picard motioned toward Data. "I take it that you have been introduced to my officers?"

"Yes, we've had a brief chat." She then went over to Counselor Troi and softly asked, "Is everything all right with Captain Picard?"

Deanna nodded.

"Report to me later, Commander," she ordered, sotto voce.

Deanna hesitated a moment too long, unsure of the proper response.

Somehow, as if he sensed what Captain Pournelle had just asked of his ship's counselor, Picard spoke up. "My officers will cooperate with you in all matters, Captain Pournelle."

Relieved that Picard was now behaving like the legendary captain that he was supposed to be, Captain Pournelle reverted back to her more easy-going self. And since she had the curiosity of a Pryisian pussycat, she walked to them and peered down into the worm's nest of honest-to-goodness metal wires that they were trying to fix or replace.

"Which way is up?"

Data obligingly pointed toward the nearest ceiling.

Startled, Anna gave the android a dour look that would have disconcerted most junior officers. "My, my, my, you do take things rather literally, don't you, Commander Data?"

"Is there any other way, Captain?" was the android's polite response.

"You'll get used to him," Picard advised as he crawled back under the console.

"I suppose that I must," Anna admitted. She looked back at the android. "Guinan's told me a lot of tall tales about you, Mr. Data. I hear that you are a hell of a bartender and that you mix a hell of a Tzartak cocktail."

"I will make one for you, if you wish," Data responded. "However, I would have thought it more likely for Guinan to have chosen to discuss my poker skills instead of my ability to mix drinks. She still owes me chips from our last game."

"And knowing Guinan, she will take her good old time in paying it." Anna then poked the visible part of Picard's shin with her duty boot. "Jean-Luc, pay attention. Do I need to call in some more of the Starfleet cavalry? Do we need the really big boys on white horses as back-up?"

Her words were worthy of a response. Picard crawled back out from under the console.

Data asked, "Captain Pournelle, I thought that _we_ were the cavalry."

Ignoring Data, Picard stood. He regarded Anna's question quite seriously. "Apparently, the Borg captured this Kataanian ship after stardate 45944.1. Why the Borg kept it, and for what purpose, we do not yet know. And as for the many other questionable coincidences, we have yet to find any logical explanations."

"What about the Administrator?" Pournelle looked over at the doctor.

"We will be ready for him if I can work with your people, though I wish I could have access to a starship sickbay," Beverly responded. "There are almost no physiological differences between the Kataanians and Terrans. In fact, if I did not know for sure that these people came from another planet in the Silarian Sector, I would have classified them as descendants of human colonists -homo sapiens."

"That sounds pretty farfetched, Doctor," Pournelle observed.

"That is not as farfetched as you suppose," Data contradicted. "Earth's history contains many reports of homo sapiens being abducted by aliens. Though most of these reports were in the 19th and 20th centuries, and were unsubstantiated, there were many examples. The Bible makes references to visitors from the heavens. The story of Noah's Ark for example, if one chooses not to interpret it religiously, could describe an alien scientific visitation collecting examples of Terran life forms. In Egyptian mythology there is the lore of alien visitation which gains credence when one analyzes the construction of the major pyramids. The North American Indian tribes believed in star people."

"Data," Picard wearily ordered, "get to the point."

"It is not inconceivable that some human beings were transported as colonists to Kataan eons ago. There are other examples of possible alien visitations to Earth. Shall I enumerate?"

"Later, Data," Picard absent-mindedly ordered as he tried to make some sense of the series of wire leads that he'd just pulled. They were soldered and actually resembled something that he had once imagined that he welded as an iron weaver.

"Lordy," Anna muttered, in awe of the android. "You said that entire spiel and took nary a breath."

"Actually, I did take three breaths, Captain Pournelle. My program regulates my autonomic responses to simulate a typical…"

Anna hooted, interrupting the android. "It looks like Guinan did not exaggerate one little bit about you at all, Mr. Data. And frankly, I find that surprising."

"As do I," Data agreed.

"I am almost afraid to hear what Guinan has said about me," Beverly joked.

Anna suddenly grinned. "You'll have to ply me with some of that fancy admiral's food from the replicators on your yacht, if you want me to confess all that I know."

"What?" Beverly looked over at Picard.

"The _Sakai's_ replicators are fully functional," Picard explained to his slightly perplexed doctor.

"Mine aren't," Pournelle added. "You never quite know what you are going to get when you order something unusual like oatmeal. They've lost most of their original programming."

"I could assist in the reprogramming," Data offered. "I have an extensive memory of food recipes."

"If there's time, I'll damn well make sure to take you up on your offer, Mr. Data," Anna readily agreed. "I really need my Jamaican Blue in the morning." Then she stared at Picard as if she were trying to wrangle some real answers from the man. "Well, are you ever going to tell me what's really going on around here, Jean-Luc?" She made sure that she stressed the captain's given name, just in case it might be of some interest to the strawberry blond haired doctor.

"Answer the captain, Mr. Data," Picard ordered as he left the group. He went to Deanna as if he would need her support in the immediate future.

Data gave Captain Pournelle a brief explanation of the facts as he knew them.

Picard waited for Captain Pournelle to explode. She did not disappoint.

After a string of very colorful and anatomically specific curses, she stomped over to her visitor and confronted the captain.

"I didn't blame you when the Borg showed up. I didn't even consider you responsible when the Borg ship crashed into my space station when you killed the Queen Borg! But this?" She gestured with both hands about the room. "Thousand-year-old people who were in your induced past that wasn't supposed to exist? Only now, they really do?" She punched her index finger against his chest. "You're giving me a hangover size headache, Jean-Luc. And I haven't even touched a drop of the really hard stuff since the day after I first met Guinan!"

"Until I saw the interior of this ship and its inhabitants, I did not consider the possibility that any of the people from my induced past might actually exist in the present time."

"You still should have told me, Picard!" She was still yelling, but the volume was turned down a few decibels.

"Yes, Captain Pournelle. I should have. I do apologize."

Anna started to rapidly assess a lot of the new possibilities. "Odds are it is a Borg plot, Jean-Luc."

"Agreed," he responded.

She was still glaring at the man when she asked, "So now what, Jean-Luc?"

Picard cast a glance toward his officers. "Suggestions?"

Deanna nodded. "Call in more cavalry."

"Especially cavalry with a fully functional sick bay. We're going to need it to revive all the Kataanians," Beverly added.

"Mr. Data?" Anna added, remembering a few more things that Guinan had told her about the android.

" I agree. Now, shall we get back to work?" the son of Soong suggested.

**=/\= ='/\'= =/\=**

"Kamin? Is that you?"

Captain Jean-Luc Picard stared at the patient lying on the medical bed and successfully controlled his total sense of shock at the Administrator's words.

The frail male patient weakly moved a hand. All sorts of monitor alarms went off.

"Go away," Dr. Crusher ordered. "You can question him after we've got him stabilized." Under her breath she added, "_If_ we can get him stabilized."

On board the _U.S.S. Yamato, NCC 71807-D, _the Kataanian Administrator had been revived.

After learning more about Captain Picard's experiences with the probe, and the possibility of more trouble from the Borg, Captain Pournelle had called for more help. The new cavalry that Starfleet had sent to her rescue was the latest incarnation of the _Yamato_. This four-year-old version of a galaxy class starship had the best sickbay around, so all of the Kataanians had been transported to it.

More shaken by the Administrator's recognition of him than he would admit, Picard went into the sickbay's waiting area where he joined Captain Pournelle, Data, Troi and the ship's captain, Laura Steele-Takashima.

Deanna spoke for all of them. "I can't believe that the Administrator recognized you, Captain Picard."

Captain Takashima agreed. She was a tall black woman in her late sixties who had married her CMO, Hiro Takashima. She spoke up. "It looks like you did the right thing when you asked Starfleet for help, Captains. My husband doesn't know what to make of any of this."

"Is that his professional opinion?" Data asked.

"It's all our opinions, Mr. Data," Anna stated as she looked about the room. She shrugged. "So, anybody feel up to a game of Klingon Gut's poker while we wait?"

**=/\= ='/\'= =/\=**

Ten hours later the Administrator was able to talk to them.

They met in the medical conference room. It was a narrow, plain room with a long table, chairs, the standard computer and reference equipment and a star portal wall which looked out over the planet.

Uncharacteristically, Captain Jean-Luc Picard was the last person to arrive.

Taking a chair directly across from the Administrator, who was seated by the middle of the table, Picard observed that the man now looked like the person he'd once met in a dream.

It was Data who started the proceedings.

"Administrator, when you awakened, you identified this man," he pointed at his captain, "as Kamin. His real name is Captain Jean-Luc Picard of Starfleet, of the United Federation of Planets."

The Administrator's expression seemed to indicate that he knew this already. "Captain of the _Enterprise_." Ignoring the stunned expressions that he'd created, he continued. "I also know, of course, Doctors Crusher and Takashima, a Counselor Troi, and you, Mr. Data." He looked at them all. "I find it peculiar that your culture requires two or more names for identification. Where I came from, one name was usually sufficient-like Kamin."

Picard leaned forward, staring at the man. "Administrator, how much do you remember?"

"Isn't that the question that I should be asking of you, Kamin?"

"My name is Jean-Luc Picard."

"As you wish, Captain." The Administrator smiled as if the captain's request was a foolishness that he would permit. "I suppose that you would like an explanation?"

Sensing something from Captain Picard, Deanna Troi interjected, "Yes, Administrator. I am sure that you can sense our concern."

"Ah, a most polite way to ask if I am a telepath, eh, Counselor Troi?"

She beamed her most cajoling smile as the man. "We are curious, Administrator Raydan."

He was not immune to the attractions of a pretty woman. "My people are telepathic, empathic…some more than others. You have many words to describe what some of us are, but none of them convey the depth and complexity of our mental abilities and their connections." As an afterthought, he added, "And you may call me Raydan or Administrator. Both names are not necessary."

"You speak a verbal language and have a written language," Data mentioned. "Most telepathic races evolve beyond the need for oral or written communications."

The Administrator seemed to find Mr. Data amusing. "Not all of my people have extensive telepathic abilities. And most do prefer to speak rather than to just think."

"Administrator, Mr. Data meant no insult," Pournelle quickly explained, lest the man get the wrong idea.

"I am aware of that, Captain Pournelle." The Administrator sent a side glance toward Picard. "I learned much about Mr. Data's uniqueness when I shared memories with Captain Picard. My people had never thought of creating such a man ourselves."

Data ignored the man's digression. "Then you are cognizant of the link between Captain Picard and your probe during our stardate 49544.1?" Data stared at the Administrator waiting for confirmation.

"Of course. We were not only aware of the scouting probe, Mr. Data, we created it and were linked to its nucleonic beam even in our state of stasis."

"Why?" The strain in Picard's voice could be heard by everyone. He could no longer abide unnecessary chitchat. That sort of speculation could wait.

The Administrator stared at Picard, then chuckled. "Some things never change. You were always impatiently demanding answers to questions even in Ressik, Kamin. And you wouldn't politely wait for those questions to be answered in their own due time."

"There is too much at stake here, Administrator. The Borg!" Picard snapped back at the man, not at all amused by the Administrator's attitude.

Deanna gasped in pain.

"What?" Beverly quickly picked up her tricorder to scan her counselor.

"The grief he feels over the Borg!" Suddenly she stopped gasping as the source of her pain faded.

"I am sorry, Counselor Troi. I had not realized how sensitive you were," the Administrator explained. He shifted in his chair, as if he were uncomfortable with what he had just unwittingly done to the empath.

"You have met the Borg?" Data asked.

"Not personally, Mr. Data. But my people have."

"Explain," Picard ordered.

"I suppose that I should start at the very beginning…" the Administrator began.

"…It is a very good place, to start," Data agreed.

At any other time, Beverly would have laughed out loud over Data's words, but the tension in the room did not permit any time for levity.

"Please, Administrator." Picard's voice was low, barely heard by those at the far ends of the table. But the Administrator heard it. And he was the one that mattered.

Deanna tried to analyze what she was sensing from Captain Picard. But he was not making it easy for her, trying to constrain his feelings, hiding them behind complex motives.

The Administrator waited for a long time before he began. "The Council knew that our sun was going to destroy us. We had been aware of it for many generations, so we prepared for it. Each community selected as many of their people as possible to journey in the ships that we were building."

"How were these elections determined?" Data asked.

The Administrator's expression saddened. "That is a very long story, Mr. Data. I will tell it later."

"Please continue." Picard asked, "The probe?"

"When each community launched their ships, scouting probes were sent ahead."

"To pave the way?" Data suggested.

"Yes, Mr. Data. We were a planet-less people, searching for a new home. We knew that we would be in stasis for a long time since we had never foreseen your warp power. And, I must admit that I never imagined that I would sleep for over a thousand of your years." He sighed. "Anyway, the scouting probes were a way of finding a suitable planet and populace to welcome each community."

"How?" Data could barely control his curiosity. He was fascinated, and his human emotions chip was letting him express these feelings.

"The scouting probes were programmed to find a being who was compatible with our mindset. If certain common elements were detected, then the probe would communicate with that being, and introduce them to the life and people of the specific community that had launched the scouting probe." The administrator drank some water and rested for a moment. "Captain Picard met the probe from Ressik."

"I still do not understand," Picard stated, hiding his growing sense of confusion. "I was told that the memories of you would live in me. There was no mention of you surviving."

"Captain, it was our way of deciding if the person contacted was worthy of knowing about our life on Kataan. When you became one of us, we gave you many tests-both big and little-to test your reactions. Your responses told us that you and your kind, and especially your family on board your starship, were the kind of people who would welcome us, and that we would welcome knowing. Once we decided that you were acceptable, we directed the Ressikan ships toward your stellar coordinates.

"Is that why when the probe's particle stream link was severed, the entire system ceased to function?" Data asked.

"Yes, it had fulfilled its purpose."

"But, how?" This time is was Deanna who was trying to understand.

The Administrator nodded toward the lady. "I really do not know. The Kataanian scientists are the ones with the answers. They created some sort of living nucleonic systems that sustained and connected our minds even when in stasis, under certain conditions. If any have survived, you must ask them."

Picard tapped his forefingers together as he studied the Administrator. "Were all of you aware of my link with your probe?"

"All of us linked with you in some way, Captain Picard. You were our Kamin. We helped you live the life of that man."

"Then, even in stasis, you have some sort of continuous link?" Beverly observed, somewhat astonished by the scope of the Kataanian telepathic abilities.

"Yes. But only among those who were part of the Ressik community fleet. We were too far away from the ships belonging to other communities to be in contact with them. Then our ships began to scatter too." He looked at Picard. "That is why there was an end to your dream, Kamin. We did not know how many light years away we were from our probe and you. And by our science, we could not believe that light year travel was possible. We thought that you would be dead by the time we reached your location."

"How did it work?" Dr. Takashima asked.

"Whenever the probe came into contact with a potential being, certain minds were activated. The greater their interest, the greater the possibility that this might be the one for whom we were searching, the greater the number of minds that were awakened. You eventually woke up the entire community of Ressik, Captain Picard. We all revisited our former lives through your interpretation of us."

There were so many questions that he needed to ask, especially about Eline and her family, but they were unimportant against the need to know about the Borg.

"And the Borg?" Picard softly asked.

"The Borg found us, captured our ships and started bringing us one by one out of stasis in order to be assimilated."

"Yet, you survived?" Captain Takashima asked, not quite believing this man's tale of good luck.

"We knew of the Borg from Captain Picard's Starfleet memories. We did our best to unite and resist against the awakening. But after the first few Ressikans were revived and assimilated, the Borg then knew everything there was to know about us. Who we were, where we had come from, where we were going, and seemingly important from their point of view, the fact that we knew of Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the starship _Enterprise."_

"You were not assimilated?" Picard ordered.

"Yes. Those of us left on board our vessel were not physically awakened. But we all experienced a few moments of shared consciousness with our fellow Ressikans before they were lost. We learned what they knew."

It was Data who said it first. "The Borg Queen." He turned to his captain. "Once she realized how important these people would be to you, she preserved them as they were, in order to one day use their presence against you, Captain."

"I don't understand," Pournelle stated, decidedly worried by this new information. She glared at Picard as if she had decided to blame all of this on him, after all. "What does the Borg Queen have to do with any of this?"

"I believe she is the real reason as to why Deep Space Five, and the other Starfleet bases were only damaged and not destroyed, Captain Pournelle," Picard answered. "The Borg Queen wanted the bodies to be brought to her as soon as possible. She would have tried to use the threat of their assimilation as a leverage against me."

"It would have failed," the Administrator stated. "Kamin would not have betrayed his beliefs."

Data added, "The Borg did not have the time to destroy DS 5 when they went by. But they would have come back, Captain Pournelle. They are most efficient in their conquering. You were most fortunate."

"And I owe our survival to the fact that the Borg had this sublight ship." Captain Pournelle leaned back against her swivel armchair and relaxed. "When the rest of your people are revived, Administrator, you are more than welcome to make DS 5 your home."

"I thank you for your offer, Captain Pournelle. But that is not for me to decide." The man looked over at Picard as if he were the one who would determine the fate of the people from Ressik.

Dr. Takashima and Dr. Crusher stood as one, waving their tricorders about, forming a united front.

"Enough," Dr. Crusher announced, as she moved to stand behind her patient. "The Administrator has endured enough. Let him rest. You can ask more questions, tomorrow."

"Just one more, Dr. Crusher." Data stood.

Eyeing her patient, she warily agreed. "Make it a short one, Mr. Data."

"Administrator, are you or any of the other Kataanians in stasis, a threat to the Federation, Starfleet or this star base?"

The Administrator did not bother to hide his weariness, even as he considered Data's question. "No, Mr. Data. As far as I can trust my memories, we are no threat to you." With the doctor's help, he was turned and guided toward the door. Yet, when he reached it, he looked back at only one person in the room.

"Captain Picard-it was real."

An unsettling silence descended as the Administrator left.

**=/\= ='/\'= =/\=**


End file.
